Posts Tagged ‘Orioles’

In a Hall of Fame Strat-O-Matic matchup between the Boston Red Sox and the American League, the former prevailed 10-3. The lineups were:

American League

Tony Lazzeri (2b)

Larry Doby (CF)

Al Simmons (LF)

Hank Greenberg (1B)

Reggie Jackson (RF)

Harmon Killebrew (3B)

Lou Boudreau (SS)

Mickey Cochrane (C)

Bob Feller (P)

Boston Red Sox

Bobby Doerr (2B)

Carlton Fisk (C)

Jimmie Foxx (1B)

Babe Ruth (LF)

Wade Boggs (3B)

Carl Yastrzemski (CF)

Harry Hooper (RF)

Joe Cronin (SS)

Lefty Grove (P)

Jimmie Foxx slugged Bob Feller’s pitching in this simulation, notching three home runs and six RBI:

1st inning: Solo home run

3rd inning: Three-run home run (Doerr and Fisk on base—each singled)

7th inning: Two-run home run (Fisk on base—single)

Foxx also walked in the 5th inning and scored on Babe Ruth’s two-run home run; he singled in the 8th but got stranded when Ruth struck out to end the inning. The other runs for the Red Sox Hall of Famers came from:

4th inning: Carl Yastrzemski solo home run

7th inning: Babe Ruth solo home run

Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951, Foxx began his career with the Philadelphia A’s in 1925. Helmed by Connie Mack for the first half of the 20th century, the A’s won the World Series in 1929 and 1930. A third consecutive World Series championship was not to be—the A’s lost to the Cardinals in 1931.

Foxx won back-to-back MVP awards in 1932 and 1933; a third MVP award came in 1938.

It was a nearly unanimous tally for the first award—voters at the Baseball Writers’ Association of American gave him 75 out of 80 possible points; Lou Gehrig had the next highest total—55 points. 1932 was the year that Foxx scored 58 dingers, just two shy of Babe Ruth’s single season record of 60.

On November 2, 1938, Foxx became the first player to win the MVP three times. Now with the Boston Red Sox, Foxx surprised the baseball world with his ascent. Associated Press noted that the slugger “made a gallant comeback after being considered on the downward trail a year ago, and bothered all this year by a sinus infection.”

In his MVP seasons, Foxx led the major leagues in several offensive categories:

Home runs (except for 1938)

RBI

Slugging percentage

On-Base + Slugging percentage

Total Bases

Foxx led the American League in batting average in 1933 and 1938; his 50 home runs trailed Hank Greenberg’s 58 in 1938. When Foxx’s career ended in 1945, staggering numbers joined the annals of baseball’s greatest players—534 home runs, .325 batting average, .609 slugging percentage.

Foxx biographer W. Harrison Daniel, in his 1996 book Jimmie Foxx: The Life and Times of a Baseball Hall of Fame, 1907-1967, notes that 1938 presented a turning point for the farm-raised ballplayer from Sudlersville, Maryland—a rural town with a population that has hovered around the 500 mark for the past 100 years.

Citing a title search at the Sudlersville Memorial Library, Daniel wrote, “Although 1938 was a memorable year in Foxx’s career, it was also the year that he abandoned any interest in returning to the farm. Ten years earlier Jimmie had made a down payment on a farm near Sudlersville and he was quoted as saying this was an investment for the future and that he hoped to retire to the farm after his playing days. It appears that Foxx’s parents lived on the farm until around 1938, when they moved into a house in the village of Sudlersville which they had purchased in 1925 and formerly rented out. Jimmie’s farm, in 1938, had a mortgage of $7,000.00 which he had not paid off. In this year the mortgage was paid and the property was transferred to J.C. Jones on June 8, 1938.”

Upon Foxx’s election to the Hall of Fame in 1951, Boston Globe sportswriter Harold Kaese noted the slugger’s urbanity off the field. “Foxx was a gentleman all right, even though he was raised on a farm and good-naturedly squirted tobacco juice on the shoes of his friends when they walked into the dugout,” wrote Kaese. “I know he was a gentleman because as the Red Sox broke training camp one Spring, and headed for Boston, he said, ‘I’ll be glad to get out of the South. You can’t even get a decent manicure down here.'”

On January 13, 1967, Foxx received the Maryland Professional Baseball Players Association’s Sultan of Swat Crown retroactively at the annual Tops in Sports banquet in Baltimore for Outstanding Batting Achievement. Illness forced Foxx to accept the award in absentia; former Orioles manager and former Foxx teammate Jimmy Dykes accepted on his behalf. Frank Robinson, a key cog in the Orioles’ machine that brought down the Dodgers in a four-game sweep of the previous year’s World Series received the Sultan of Swat Crown for 1966 and fellow Maryland native Lefty Grove also received an award at the event. Foxx passed away six months later.

Today, Foxx’s Sultan of Swat Crown sits in Sudlersville Memorial Library as a testament to the farm boy who became a baseball superstar but never forgot where he came from. Generations of Sudlersville families remain in town, offering continuity of community—if a Sudlersvillean goes to the library, the grocery store, or the bank, he or she is likely to triple the time allotted for the task because conversations, serious and casual, will commence. In a town where everybody knows everybody else, gossip is not the watchword. Rather, the verbal exchanges ignite the thoughtful question “How can I help?” rather than the judgmental statement “That’s too bad.”

If a trek occurs near the intersection of Main Street and Church Street, the conversation may include the topic of baseball, specifically, the man embodied by the statue there. It’s a pose of a baseball player after one of his mighty right-handed swings—the one who decimated American League pitching, became a baseball hero to Philadelphians and Bostonians, and inspired the character Jimmy Dugan, played by Tom Hanks, in A League of Their Own.

James Emory Foxx.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on February 4, 2017.

On the 9th day of the 10th month of the 66th year of the 20th century, it ended—the subject being the World Series between the Baltimore Orioles and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Baltimore emerged as champions, triggering elation throughout the metropolis named for Cecil Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore—the first Proprietor and Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland. It was not supposed to happen. At lest it was not supposed to happen the way it did, with the Orioles blanking the vaunted Dodgers squad for a 4-0 sweep—three games were shutouts:

Game 1: 5-2

Game 2: 6-0

Game 3: 1-0

Game 4: 1-0

In turn, the Orioles elevated their status in Baltimore’s sports hierarchy. “This season’s feats of the Orioles, who leaped from crisis to crisis and still won the pennant, and who brought the exciting Frank Robinson to the city as a counter attraction to the demigod Johnny Unitas, balanced the ledger more than a bit. The Colts may not have lost their eminence, but the city’s fans and newspapers have learned that there is another team in town,” wrote Shirley Povich, whose words in the Washington Post started the day for sports fans in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

Ushered to Baltimore in a trade with Cincinnati after the 1965 season, Robinson swatted his way through American League pitching in his first year as an Oriole:

Led Major Leagues

Runs Scored (122)

Home Runs (49)

Slugging Percentage (.637)

On-Base + Slugging Percentage (1.047)

Total Bases (367)

Led American League

RBI (122)

Batting Average (.316)

On-Base Percentage (.410)

Sacrifice Flies (7)

Robinson won the American League Most Valuable Player Award and the World Series Most Valuable Player Award. It was a vindication, of sorts. “I wanted to have a good year especially to show the people in the front office there [in Cincinnati] that I wasn’t washed up, and I wanted to show them by having a good year,” said Robinson in an Associated Press article published in the Baltimore Sun on October 10th.

“And I wanted to show the people, the officials, the city of Baltimore they were getting a guy who still could play baseball.”

For the Dodgers, blaming and shaming arrived with gusto. Los Angeles Times sports columnist Jim Murray, for example, lobbed verbal grenades spiked with sarcasm, as was his wont. Murray’s piece titled “The Dodger Story: A Classic Case of Ineptitude” brought forth a wheelbarrow full of bon mots.

On the Dodgers’ hitting woes: “Their batting average cannot be seen with the naked eye or figured under the decimal system. Guys who weigh that little get to ride horse races.”

On Don Drysdale: “He deserved better, but the Dodgers’ invisible attack, the worst exercise in offensive futility since Mussolini’s invasion of Greece, left him like a guy who thinks his whole platoon is crawling through the brush with him until he whispers and gets no answer back. The Dodger ‘attack’ would have to be twice as loud to be dignified as ‘whispering.’ They hit the ball as if it was a cantaloupe.”

On the Dodgers’ post-season Japan trip: “They are now taking the act to Japan where, when the Japanese get a load of them, they may want to reopen World War II.”

Stocked with blue chips nearly as strong as the Dow 30, the Dodgers suffered a downturn that was unavoidable, arguably—Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Tommy Davis, Ron Fairly, Maury Wills, Wes Parker et al. faced an opponent that needed to be quashed before taking on the O’s. In his 2006 book Black and Blue: Sandy Koufax, the Robinson Boys, and the World Series That Stunned America, Tom Adelman posited that exhaustion—or something close to it—affected the Dodgers after a merciless pennant race. “Unlike the Orioles, they’d [sic] had no chance to adjust to the idea of a post-season contest—to catch their breath, raise their sights, and ready themselves for a fight,” wrote Adelman, who interviewed several players from both squads. Ron Fairly, among others, confirmed the toll created by the quick turnaround from the end of the season to the beginning of the World Series.

That is not to take anything away from the Orioles, managed by Hank Bauer, who knew a thing or two thousand about winning—he played for the Yankees during the Mantle era, which saw World Series titles in:

1949

1950

1951

1952

1953

1956

1958

American League pennant flew unaccompanied in the Bronx in 1955 and 1957.

Bauer won the Associated Press Manager of the Year Award and the Sporting News Manager of the Year Award in 1966.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on January 23, 2017.

It was a moment of nostalgia, surprise, and joy. More than 30 years after hanging up his spikes, Luke Appling went yard at the age of 75 in the 1982 Cracker Jack Old Timers Baseball Classic at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.

Far from a power hitter, Luke Appling bashed 45 home runs in his career, which was one of, as Wee Willie Keeler said, hitting them where they ain’t. Appling fell shy of the magic mark of 3,000 hits, ending his career with 2,749 hits, including:

440 doubles

102 triples

He played his entire career in a White Sox uniform—1930 to 1950.

The Cracker Jack game was a shot of adrenaline to baseball fans suffering the psychic wounds created by the previous year’s strike, which shortened the 1981 baseball season. Appling’s home run off Warren Spahn washed away, if only for a jiffy, the festering stench of despair felt across the fan spectrum, from Tee-ball players first learning the basics to senior citizens reminiscing about ballparks that no longer exist.

Appling was the oldest player in the Cracker Jack game, which ended with the American League beating the National League 7-2.

Nearly 30,000 fans poured into RFK on July 19, 1982 to watch baseball’s heroes of days gone by. Though the ex-players wore the uniforms so familiar to baseball fans, their appearances showed the slights of age. A little grayer. A touch heavier. A bit slower. None of that mattered. Old Timers games are affairs of the heart. Baseball is, after all, a sentimental game, at once wistful and exciting.

Appling’s homer punctuated the pleasure at seeing a game where icons, though far from their prime, can recapture the feeling that anything is possible.

Bobby Thomson proved it when he knocked a Ralph Branch pitch over the left field fence at the Polo Grounds to win the 1951 National League pennant for the New York Giants.

The 1969 Mets proved it when they beat the favored Baltimore Orioles to win the World Series.

Cal Ripken, Jr. proved it when he broke Lou Gehrig’s streak of consecutive games played.

A .310 career hitter, Appling suffered injuries that came faster than a street hustler moving the cards in Three Card Monte. “Old Aches and Pains” became his moniker. Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964, Appling’s career achievements were:

528 strikeouts

1,302 walks

.399 On-base percentage

Led major leagues with a .388 batting average in 1936 (Lou Gehrig eclipsed Appling in the voting for the American League Most Valuable Player Award)

Led American League with a .328 batting average and a .419 On-base percentage in 1943

On the morning of the Cracker Jack game, in a harbinger of the home run, an Appling quote appeared in Denis Collins’s article “Old Timers: Memories Are as Strong as Ever” for the Washington Post: “I can still slap the ball around here and there.”

Indeed.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on October 20, 2016.

In a Strat-O-Matic matchup between 19th century and Yankee ballplayers, the latter emerged with a victory blessed by power—the Yankees smacked four home runs against John Clarkson and the 19th century squad in their 7-1 win. Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle went yard back-to-back with solo home runs in the sixth inning; the other round trippers came off the bats of Joe Gordon and Yogi Berra.

To qualify for the teams, a player had to play at least five years for each classification—in the 19th century or with the Yankees. The lineups were:

Yankees

Phil Rizzuto, Shortstop

Joe Gordon, Second Base

Lou Gehrig, First Base

Babe Ruth, Left Field

Mickey Mantle, Center Field

Reggie Jackson, Right Field

Wade Boggs, Third Base

Yogi Berra, Catcher

Jack Chesbro, Pitcher

19th Century

Bid McPhee, Second Base

Ed Delahanty, Left Field

Buck Ewing, Catcher

Hugh Duffy, Center Field

Dan Brothers, First Base

Hughie Jennings, Shortstop

King Kelly, Right Field

Jimmy Collins, Third Base

John Clarkson, Pitcher

Bid McPhee scored the only run for the 19th century players when Ed Delahanty doubled him home in the eighth inning. McPhee’s Hall of Fame plaque notes career statistics:

.982 fielding average

2,250 hits

Scored at least 100 runs 10 times.

Also highlighted are McPhee’s intangible qualities: “Known for his sober disposition and exemplary sportsmanship.”

Clarkson notched five strikeouts of the Yankees:

Lou Gehrig (twice)

Jack Chesbro (twice)

Reggie Jackson (once)

A masterful hurler, Clarkson compiled a 328-178 win-loss record in his 19th century major league career. In 1885 and 1889, he led the major leagues in victories with 53 and 49, respectively; Clarkson notched 38 victories to lead the American League in 1887.

Gordon went 2-for-5 on the day, his other hit being a single in the ninth inning. In an 11-year career, Gordon made the American League All-Star team nine times.

Chesbro limited the 19th century batsmen to six hits. Beginning his career with the Pirates in 1899, Chesbro spent four seasons in Pittsburgh before emigrating to the Yankees. In 1904, he led the majors with 41 victories. Finishing his career after the 1909 season, Chesbro’s career 198-132 win-loss record amounted to a winning percentage of .600.

King Kelly, a threat at home plate even if he were blindfolded, played for the Reds, the Cubs, the Beaneaters, and the Giants, in addition to the Boston Reds in the Players League’s only season—1890—and Cincinnati Kelly’s Killers the following year. Kelly’s career spanned from 1878 to 1893. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1945, Kelly’s career statistics include:

.308 batting average

359 doubles

418 strikeouts

6,455 plate appearances

Reggie Jackson played for four teams in his Hall of Fame career:

A’s

Orioles

Yankees

Angels

During his five-year tenure with the Yankees, he played in three World Series, won two rings, and solidified a place in Yankee iconography when he smacked three home runs in one game in the 1977 World Series.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on October 16, 2016.

A native of Key West—the place where Pan Am began, the U.S.S. Maine sailed from on its last journey before exploding in Havana Harbor, and Ernest Hemingway maintained a legendary home—John Wesley Powell, also known as Boog, spent most of his 17-season career in an Orioles uniform. One of those seasons—1970—resulted in him winning the American League Most Valuable Player Award.

Powell ran away with the MVP voting, gaining 11 of 24 first-place votes and 234 points. The next four contestants weren’t even close:

Tony Oliva, Minnesota Twins (157)

Harmon Killebrew, Minnesota Twins (152)

Carl Yastrzemski, Boston Red Sox (136)

Frank Howard, Washington Senators (91)

Memorial Stadium rocked with the cheers of Oriole Nation as Powell marched toward the coveted .300 batting average barrier, falling just short at .297. Powell’s dominance at the plate reflected in 35 home runs, 114 RBI, and a .549 slugging percentage.

It was a banner year for Baltimore’s birds—they won the World Series after getting upset by the Miracle Mets in 1969. Powell’s fellow Orioles did not fare as well with awards, despite outstanding seasons. Baltimore’s legendary pitching staff boasted three 20-game winners—Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Jim Palmer scored in the top five for the American League Cy Young Award voting, but got eclipsed by Jim Perry of the Twins.

Powell said, “I think it’s a shame we were neglected for the other awards. All of our three pitchers certainly deserved the Cy Young. But I’m still elated at being chosen the MVP. I feel it’s the highest honor in sports.”

Yankee skipper Ralph Houk won the American League Manager of the Year title rather than Earl Weaver, who helmed the O’s to two straight World Series. A third consecutive appearance happened against the Pittsburgh Pirates in ’71—ultimately a losing affair in seven games.

Cheers, an NBC prime time powerhouse in the 1980s, used Powell to cement verisimilitude of Sam “Mayday” Malone—a fictional relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, a recovering alcoholic, and the owner of Cheers. As the show’s theme song declares, Cheers is a bar, near the Boston Commons, where everybody knows your name.

In the first season episode “Sam at Eleven,” Sam’s former ballplayer pal Dave Richards, now a sportscaster, wants to interview the ex-Red Sox reliever at Cheers. Sam talks about a dramatic moment when he faced Powell in the bottom of the ninth inning of the first game of a doubleheader. During the middle of Sam’s story, Dave abandons for an interview with John McEnroe. Diane Chambers, an intellectual waitress having an undercurrent of highly significant sexual tension with Sam, which gets resolved in a later episode when they succumb to their respective differences—he, a dumb jock stereotype and she, a condescending sort—asks what happened to “the Boog person” and Sam, obviously suffering from a punch to his ego, casually tells her that Powell grounded to third to end the game.

After some gentle and not-so-gentle verbal prodding from Diane, Sam talks about the injury to his psyche. Then, perhaps in a moment of catharsis, he tells Diane about the end of the second game, which also found him facing Powell in the bottom of the ninth.

Sam’s story could not have taken place during Powell’s MVP year, however. When Cheers left prime time in 1993, after 11 seasons, Sports Illustrated ran a biography of America’s favorite barkeep. “Everybody Knows His Name” recounted Malone’s career based on dialogue throughout the series. Sam Malone entered professional baseball in 1966, débuted in the major leagues in 1972, and ended his career in 1978.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on October 15, 2016.

It is the birthplace of The Star-Spangled Banner, the resting place of Edgar Allen Poe, and the place where a stadium constructed during the nostalgia-soaked 1980s defines the paradigm for retro ballparks.

Baltimore.

Petco Park, PNC Park, and several others, indeed, have Oriole Park at Camden Yards in their DNA. It began the erasure of the circular goliaths built in the 1960s for multiple sports, changing the game of ballpark architecture for urban planners, government officials, and fans. Shea Stadium hosted the Jets and the Mets. Going to the “Vet” for a sports fan meant either a Phillies game or an Eagles game. Memorial Stadium gave Baltimore a home for the Orioles and the Colts.

Oriole Park ushered in a back to the future approach to creating a space where baseball can flourish.

The statues of Oriole icons are amazingly detailed. When observing Jim Palmer’s left leg extended just before releasing the ball, you almost think the statue will come to life. Brooks Robinson stands in a slight crouch, waiting for a line drive or ground ball. Earl Weaver, hands in back pockets, appears ready for another argument with an umpire.

The Baltimore Sun has an electric sign past center field with its shortened name—The Sun. When there’s a hit, the “h” flashes. An error prompts the “e” to flash.

Baseball-themed plaques dot Eutaw Street outside the outfield perimeter, marking the spots where balls have landed. One plaque sits on the exterior of a restaurant—Ken Griffey, Jr. knocked that dinger during Home Run Derby of the 1993 All-Star Game.

A statue of Babe Ruth stands outside an entrance, reminding entrants that, while the Bambino found pitching success in Boston and earned legend status with home runs in New York, he is a Baltimorean.

Cal Ripken, Jr. made baseball history at Oriole Park in 1995, when he eclipsed Lou Gehrig’s streak of 2,130 consecutive games.

Pope John Paul II celebrated mass at Oriole Park when he visited Baltimore on his 1995 trip. The NBC television show Homicide features Frank Pembleton, played by Andre Braugher, watching the Pope’s visit on television.

On April 6, 1992, President George H. W. Bush threw out the first pitch for the first game at Oriole Park. It was a fitting moment for the former first baseman for Yale.

Baltimore’s rich train legacy permeates the ballpark. Beyond right field, the former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Warehouse stands as a testament to the city’s transportation past, occupied present by team offices. Camden Yards is the site of the B&O’s rail yard in days of yore.

Dave, The West Wing, and The Wire contain scenes at Oriole Park—the first two offerings focus on fictional presidents throwing out the first ball. In an episode of House of Cards, the fictional vice president, Frank Underwood throws out the first ball; Kevin Spacey, an Orioles fan, plays the devious Underwood in the series.

Baltimore’s communal feeling surrounds Oriole Park. Its aura is one of friendliness. Its history, one of the richest in baseball. Major League Baseball planted a flag in Baltimore when the St. Louis Browns moved after the 1953 season, but it was not the first MLB team for the city. Dating back to 1882, Baltimore had a major league presence. When a game takes place at Oriole Park, it continues a legacy ignited by John McGraw, Hughie Jennings, and Wee Willie Keeler; bolstered by Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, and Jim Palmer; and cemented by Cal Ripken, Jr., Eddie Murray, and Earl Weaver.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on September 25, 2016.

At the turn of the 21st century, while the world scrambled to confront a Y2K threat to computers, Bobby Bonilla and the management of the New York Mets came to an agreement regarding salary—defer it. Well, a lot of it. From 2011 to 2035, Bonilla gets annual compensation somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.19 million. This financial ritual happens every July 1st—a nice way to start the second half of the year for the Bronx native, a multiple defensive threat at third base first base, and right field.

Bonilla was owed $5.9 million by the fellas in blue and orange; his last year in a major league uniform was 2001. Apparently, the Mets believed that the time value of money combined with comfortable returns from Bernie Madoff’s handling of accounts made the deferment a wise maneuver. It was a financial mistake—serious, if not epic.

Madoff, of course, proved to be an expert disciple of the Ponzi School of Fraud, with a major in Deceit.

Bonilla’s was not the first deal to backfire. And it will not be the last, certainly. Desi Arnaz negotiated the rights to the negatives of I Love Lucy. CBS acquiesced, figuring that nobody would watch an episode once it aired. I Love Lucy became a juggernaut in reruns.

IBM calculated that profits came from the sale of computers, not computer software. Consequently, it dismissed an opportunity to be a part of a little company started by a spectacled Harvard dropout from Washington state. Microsoft.

And there’s Peter Minuit getting Manhattan Island from the Dutch for 60 guilders—$24 in beads. Or so the legend goes.

Bonilla’s original deal, which closed in 1991, made him the “highest-paid player in team sports” because of an organization “with a flair for the dramatic and an unprecedented expenditure of cash,” wrote New York Times sports scribe Joe Sexton, who broke down the terms: guaranteed five-year contract, $27.5 million in base salary, and $1.5 million in a “promotional arrangement.”

It appeared to be a signal of a new era. Eddie Murray, as much a fixture of Baltimore as the Fort McHenry National Monument, signed with the Mets in the same off-season. “Bonilla may not be a colossal talent, but his acquisition registers an enormous impact on the Mets, the shifts that result likely to be felt in everything from the club’s public perception to its daily lineup,” opined Sexton. “For Bonilla is both an engaging personality—his charisma can infect a clubhouse, his unaffected self-confidence can defuse the pressures of performance—and an intriguing offensive force.”

Bonilla had a 16-year career, playing with eight teams:

Pirates

Mets

Dodgers

Orioles

Marlins

Braves

Cardinals

White Sox

His career stats, though not in the Cooperstown sphere, are formidable:

.279 batting average

2,010 hits

408 doubles

287 home runs

1,084 runs scored

1,173 RBI

Further, he cracked the barriers of a .300 batting average three times and 100 RBI or more four times.

For America, the beginning of July indicates the annual celebration of the country’s independence from Great Britain. An omnipresence of memorabilia colored red, white, and blue envelops us, as do red and green five months hence.

For Roberto Martin Antonio Bonilla, the beginning of July indicates a seven-figure payment from a deferred compensation deal that will conclude in 2015. No windfall, this. It’s simply a creative structuring of salary.

Somewhere, Jack Benny is smiling.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on July 1, 2016.

Lou Piniella is one of baseball’s greatest journeymen—a player with the Orioles, the Indians, the Royals, and the Yankees, in addition to stints as a manager with the Yankees, the Reds, the Mariners, the Devil Rays, and the Cubs.

Piniella’s achievements as a manager include winning a World Series championship, AL Manager of the Year twice, and NL Manager of the Year once. With 1,835 career wins, Piniella is #14 on the all-time list—ahead of Hall of Fame managers Earl Weaver, Wilbert Robinson, Al Lopez, Miller Huggins, Tommy Lasorda, and Clark Griffith. Also, Piniella managed the Mariners to an American League single-season record of 116 wins in 2001.

And yet, Piniella is not graced with a plaque in the Hall of Fame. Why? Surely, his managerial success indicates a career deserving of inclusion into the exclusive club in Cooperstown, located at 25 Main Street. And that success emanated from determination. Piniella managed as he played—with fierceness to win and reluctance to lose.

Yankee owner George Steinbrenner gave Piniella his first manager job. Working for Steinbrenner came with legendary tension. But in a 2002 article by Ira Berkow in the New York Times, Pinieall acknowledged the opportunity. “I owe my managerial career to George,” said Piniella. “He made me the manager and it was on-the-job training. He saw something in me—I know he liked my intensity as a player—and he gave me a shot.”

“Intensity” to say the least. Piniella had the resolve of a bull charging the matador.

For Yankee fans, Piniella was a fixture on the “Bronx Zoo” teams that brought three American League pennants and two World Series titles to Yankee Stadium in the late 1970s. It was a volatile era, indeed. When Reggie Jackson joined the Yankees before the 1977 season, Piniella knew a storm was brewing around the star player and manager Billy Martin that would have made the tornado from The Wizard of Oz look like a slight breeze.

“It was obviously going to be explosive,” said Piniella in Bill Pennington’s 2015 book Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius. “And Billy was right, it did cause problems with Thurman [Munson] and Craig [Nettles]. But at the same time, let’s face it, Reggie was never Billy’s kind of player. I think Billy did resent him a little. He didn’t like most guys who called attention to themselves.”

On June 16, 1984, Piniella played in his last game. Naturally, he had the game-winning RBI. Even though Piniella went 0-for-5 on the day, his efforts contributed value to the Yankees beating the Orioles 8-3—the crucial RBI came from a ground ball.

George Vecsey of the New York Times described Piniella’s psychological makeup in an account of the June 16th game. “His temper kept him in the minor leagues for most of the 1960’s, but later that temper hardened into a fierce athletic pride. Only rarely did the temper come through in New York—but when it did, the tantrum was a beauty. Who will ever forget Piniella sitting on the grass, pounding his fists on the east, raging over being called out by Ron Luciano during the 1978 playoffs?”

Piniella won the American League Rookie of the Year Award in 1969, notching a .282 batting average, 139 hits, and 68 RBI for the Kansas City Royals. “Sweet Lou” retired from playing during the 1984 season. His career statistics include a .291 batting average, 1,705 hits, and 305 doubles.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on June 16, 2016.

Yankee history—a farrago of excellence, myth, and icons—began, in fact, in Baltimore.

After two seasons in the city abutting Chesapeake Bay—1901 and 1902—the Orioles departed for New York City, a result of Frank Farrell and Bill Devery buying the defunct operations for $18,000. New York’s team became the Highlanders—later, the Yankees. Baltimore, in turn, lacked a major league ball club until 1954, when the St. Louis Browns moved there; once again, the city boasted a team known as the Orioles.

Washington Heights in upper Manhattan hosted the Highlanders at the new stadium called American League Park; its location earned the label Hilltop Park. On April 30, 1903, the Highlanders inaugurated their new home with a 6-2 victory over the Washington Senators. Ban Johnson, the American League’s president, threw out the first ball.

Building the field was not, in any way, an endeavor easily accomplished. “It wasn’t very impressive,” recounted Marty Appel in his 2012 chronicle Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees form Before the Babe to After the Boss. “It would be a haul for fans to get to this field, and they would expect something worthy of the journey, worthy of a paid admission. The new team had to give them a product that felt big-time. And the clock was ticking.”

Indeed, fans attending the Highlanders-Senators contest saw a field requiring attention. “Although the stands have not yet been completed, the occupants of the half-finished structures seemed to be perfectly satisfied with the seating arrangements,” reported the New York Times. “While the big gathering was not over demonstrative [sic], the absence of fault finding was in itself an assurance to the management that the patrons fully appreciated the difficulties which beset the new club and due credit was given to the almost herculean efforts of the officials who had accomplished so much in such a brief time.

“The diamond, newly sodded and rolled to perfection, was the only spot in the big field which could not be improved.”

Lacking the benefits of mass transit to the environs of the ballpark, fans nonetheless journeyed for a formidable turnout. “When the game was called there were fully fifteen thousand people present, a remarkable number, considering that the rapid transit road will not be completed this season, and that the spectators had to come on surface lines,” stated the New York Herald Tribune. The Times reported the attendance as 16,243.

Wee Willie Keeler scored three runs for New York’s nascent squad. Highlanders hurler Jack Chesbro held the Zeusian power of Ed Delahanty in check by not allowing a hit for the Senators slugger; Delahanty led the American League in 1902 with a .376 batting average, in addition to leading the major leagues in doubles, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage.

The Highlanders left seven players on base. The Senators, nine. Elapsed time for the game stood at ninety minutes.

In their first season, the Highlanders drew more than 211,000 fans to place 7th of 8th in the American League.

A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on April 30, 2016.